Social media surprisingly important for luxury watch industry

If one finding surprises you this April, it should be this one: social media has proved to be a vital component in marketing luxury watches. According to the WorldWatchReport™ social traffic has “one of the highest purchase intents with 13% of social traffic heading to the store locator.” Additionally, in the past 12 months, social traffic has “increased by an impressive 76%”.

Luxury watch (and more) giant Richemont is up by 20% this year

SOURCE: Yahoo Finance

Luxury watch websites grew massively in 2016, with branded websites remaining the jewel in the crowns of the industry’s kings and queens. But social media has proved to be an unexpectedly powerful way to get consumers onto those branded websites.

Just a few short years ago, the Swiss watch industry was (allegedly) imperiled by the advent of smartphones (which, of course, include a time keeping function). Then, they were about to be disrupted by smart watches (Apple Watch being the first of a shortish group). However, in 2017, the luxury watch industry appears to have picked up steam again.

How important is social media to luxury watches?

That doesn’t mean the sector is going backwards – simply that these legacy companies and industries are entering the modern world. We wrote recently about Richemont’s first smartwatch coming to market (see here), and the findings of this report reiterate the fact that luxury watches are going digital – just not in the way you might think.

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